about my mother?”
“The photo,” he said, passing it to her. “Her name’s on the back, but it’s dated 1938.”
Hannah Howell and Angus, Age 1. August 1938. Regan turned it back over and examined the faces. “It’s not your great-grandmother,” she said. “It’s mine. My mother was named after her. And Angus was my grandfather…”
She’d seen something in the ledger, something that made no sense.
“H.H.,” she said, reading a set of initials aloud. “Malcolm was paying her. A whole series of monthly payments, beginning in June 1937.”
“Paying her? For what?”
Regan raised an eyebrow at him. “The obvious, obviously.”
“Would he pay her directly? Or the hotel? Never paid for it before. How does it work?”
“Not like this,” she said. The payments had begun when her great-grandmother was heavily pregnant with Angus. “Pay for play, not one payment a month. It’s more like…”
Child maintenance payments.
Regan knew what she would find in the letters, and yet she read them one by one in order, passing them to Arthur when she was finished. First were the letters from Regan’s great-grandmother Hannah. Then there were letters from Lord Malcolm’s mother, the Dowager Countess of Godwick. Together, they told the story of a brief, torrid affair that ended as all brief, torrid affairs did. This one, however, had unintended consequences.
“Lord Malcolm was your great-grandfather,” Arthur said finally, having reached the same conclusion she had, the conclusion she couldn’t bring herself to say out loud. “Regan…we’re second cousins.”
She nodded slowly. “It seems we are.”
“Good thing you don’t hate us wicked Godwicks anymore,” he said with a laugh. “You’re one of us.”
13
The Prisoner
“My God,” Regan said, closing her eyes. She leaned forward, head in her hands.
“Regan. Regan?” Arthur’s voice pushed past her defenses. “You can’t believe for one second that matters to me or anyone.”
Of course it didn’t matter. Not that. First cousins could marry in Europe and did. Even if they were brother and sister it wouldn’t matter because she couldn’t have children.
It would never be that. It was this:
“Your grandfather turned away his own niece.”
“He did,” Arthur said.
“His own niece. His own family. He must have known…”
“I’m certain he did.” Arthur sat back on the floor. “How could he do that? What was he afraid of?”
“A legitimate claim on the family fortune?”
“Probably, yes. Especially since Malcolm gave your great-grandmother financial support for their son.”
Regan stared at Arthur, still in shock. “If Malcolm can do all this—move paintings, give people dreams and nightmares and throw keys at them…why didn’t he try to save my mother?”
“Maybe he did try,” Arthur said. “You don’t know that he didn’t. Good chance my grandfather just ignored all the signs and warnings. Now Malcolm’s trying again.”
“Too late now.”
“Not for you. You said it would take a miracle to convince you to have a life with me. You got your miracle, didn’t you?”
“Arthur…” She shook her head.
It wasn’t that simple. It was never that simple.
A knock surprised them both. A knock and a door opening.
“Boss?”
It was Zoot. She didn’t wait for an answer but marched straight into the office holding a wrapped painting.
“Boss? What’re you two doing on the floor?”
“Oh, just going through some old papers,” Regan said. She quickly stood up and gathered herself. Arthur went to the window that looked out onto the city.
“You wanted me to take something to the auction house, right?” Zoot asked.
“Yes, this one.” Regan passed her the Nourse painting. “And you can hang the other painting over the fireplace.”
“I’ll do it,” Arthur said. He took the wrapped painting into the sitting room, Zoot following.
“Regan?” Arthur’s voice came from the other room. Something in his tone made her run to him straight away.
“What is it—” Then she saw.
“What’s wrong, Boss?” Zoot asked. “You want something else? Thought Evelyn de Morgan was your girl crush.”
She’d told Zoot to bring up another painting, any painting. The painting Arthur had unwrapped was by Evelyn de Morgan—indeed her favorite. And she knew this painting well. It was of a woman wearing a blue gown, adorned with a peacock feather, a net of pearls in her hair, and manacles on her wrists—one cuff made of iron, one made of gold.
The Prisoner.
“No,” Regan said. “It’s fine. You can go.”
Zoot gave her a long look, and Arthur, too. Perhaps sensing the tension, she made no other comment and simply left with the Nourse painting.
They stood alone, side by side, she and Arthur, the painting slightly trembling in his hands.
“The Prisoner? What do you think it means?” Arthur said. “Am I supposed to chain you up?